Why Games With a Score of 50/100 Aren’t Bad

Games and movies have too quickly adopted the method of school-style grading, resulting is a skewed perspective on what a game’s score actually means.

Image via Comcept

Poor ‘Mighty No. 9’

Hello nerds and nerdettes. Over the past few weeks we’ve hit our summer slump. You know the one, where movies and AAA games take a bit of a holiday and we’re left with somewhat bland offerings in the entertainment industry. Game of Thrones has ended its sixth season, and no new Marvel movies are coming out for a few months. While major AAA titles in games and movies have taken a hiatus, that doesn’t mean that smaller publishers aren’t pushing out games trying to fill the two month void in the industry.

In the last few weeks, we saw the release of Mighty No. 9 and Umbrella Corps. What I find interesting about both of these games outside of their core concepts is the fact that both of these games scored incredibly low on Metacritic. The scores were so low in fact that many people would consider them horrible and outright failures.

To clarify, Mighty No. 9 currently sits at about a 55 while Umbrella Corps. hovers around a 30. Both of these scores are not good in the video game industry, where having anything lower than a 70 carries with it the connotation of a bad game. Yet, after having played both games briefly, I have to say I don’t feel as though these titles are deserving of the low esteem that the community holds them in. This idea helped me come to a few conclusions about the perceptions of ratings by the consumer. In the video above is the first level within Mighty No. 9 with some commentary where I dissect the issue further and propose one possible answer.

What’s the lowest scoring game you’ve purchased? How much do scores influence your purchases? Tweet me @Flagcap. And be sure to follow us @YouNerded.